“My first mistake was not coming up with a plan fast enough after he’d discovered I wasn’t really Harlow,” she said. “It didn’t take long for the threats to start, telling me he would tell everyone who I was if I didn’t do everything he wanted. At first I complied, giving in to his sick sexual fantasies. Part of me liked it. In the very beginning. But then he kept getting weirder and weirder, amping it up. I’ll spare you the details, though.”
Unfortunately, Naomi is able to imagine the details after learning about the DMs from Meghan. A creeping feeling pricks up her skin at the thought of her sister being involved with someone like him.
She’s here in front of you, she’s fine,Naomi tells herself.
But is she?She stares at her sister, focusing on the subtle tremor in her leg, the twitch of her hand.
“I couldn’t be beholden to him anymore,” Faye says, face red. “I needed to find a way to gain control back. So I’d planned to dig up his secrets and blackmail him back. Little did I know, someone had already done the groundwork for me.”
“Meghan?” Naomi asks.
Faye frowns in confusion.
Naomi explains how she met with Meghan Rhodes, recapping the horrible things she learned about Colton.
“Well, that was nice of Meghan to share that information with the world, wasn’t it?” Faye says sarcastically.
“I wouldn’t judge her too harshly. She was scared shitless of his family, had to sign an NDA…” Naomi gives Faye a chastising look, hoping the irony isn’t lost on her, of her—of all people—judging Meghan.
Faye rolls her eyes. “Well, no, it wasn’t Meghan. It was Harlow.”
Now it’s Naomi’s turn to frown in confusion. “She told you before…?”
Faye shakes her head. “Not exactly, but in a way, yes. Just before she died, she said something like, ‘You want my life so badly? Enjoy.’ Then she clutched at this large cross necklace hanging off her chest and said, ‘Take this. You’ll need it.’”
Faye pulls a necklace matching the description out of her bag, holding it up for Naomi, an excited look on her face. “I didn’t think anything of it at first. Thought she was being a bitch, saying I needed God or something to help save me because of what I’d done. But she was trying to help me. She didn’t want the truth about Colton to die with her.”
Naomi narrows her eyes and frowns, not fully understanding.
“Look.” Faye twists off the top of the necklace and turns it over. She holds her hand out, revealing a small memory stick. “She’d been gathering evidence against Colton. And hid it in here.”
*
Faye pulls her laptop out of her bag, typing and clicking as she explains what she found.
“So there’s lots of files—anonymous emails, social media messages, crime scene photos, and news articles, which I assume are women who Harlow thought were hurt by Colton. Most of these don’t actually prove anything—it looks like she was trying to build some sort of case against him, putting together pieces no one else would even be looking for.”
She swallows hard, before turning the screen toward Naomi.
“This is the worst of them, but it’s her. It’s Jade.” Faye’s voice is filled with sadness and anger. “I didn’t know her that well, but we’d bump into each other from time to time, talk about music after gigs.”
Naomi fights the urge to vomit as a female corpse fills the screen. She looks so fragile and pale, with hues of blue discoloration on her skin. Faye clicks through the photos, one showing a needle mark in her arm and a few showing the blue bruises covering her neck, with“Photos deleted from records”scrawled in the margin. Among the rest of the files is an official autopsy report, citing drug overdose as her death, plus newspaper articles alleging the same. The articles are dated October 2021.
“But look at this,” Faye says, opening a photo of a handwritten letter. “This is how I know exactly what happened to Jade…”
Naomi covers her mouth in horror as she reads a witness statement. Written by the real Harlow Hayes.
*
Stomach roiling with nausea, Naomi forces herself to focus on her breathing as she finishes reading. Turns out her theory about what happened to Jade wasn’t far off. In the letter, Harlow summarizes the details leading up to Jade’s death. A threesome gone wrong the night before the 2021 VMAs. Colton taking things too far, ignoring Jade struggling below him and Harlow’s cries to stop. The morning after, Colton claimed “it” was taken care of.
How fucking cruel, Naomi thinks, heart aching for Jade’s sister, Emily.Not only did Colton kill Jade, but he dumped her body in some shithole to rot and then let her family think she shot herself up with dirty heroin.
Not that different from what your own sister let you believe, a voice counters.
She huffs out a breath, head spinning. She should feel vindicated that she pretty much pieced together the true cause of Jade’s death, but it doesn’t make her feel any better. She feels gross. Disgusted.
“Must’ve been eating Harlow alive if she was planning to go to the cops with this and implicate herself.”
